The Essence of Islam – Volume II — Page 27
Arabic the Mother of Tongues 27 has affected their human faculties like paralysis, so that they have been rendered utterly worthless and without feeling. . . . . Here we consider it proper to dispel some of the doubts and misconceptions of Max Müller which he discusses in the first volume of his book on the science of languages. . His statement: One factor that has blocked the progress of knowledge is that some people, in order to expose other people to ridicule and contempt, employed contemptuous epithets to them, and thus failed to learn their languages. . So long as the words wild and dumb ('Ajami) as applied to those people were not excluded from human dictionaries, and did not give place to the expression 'brother', and so long as it was not acknowledged that all mankind are of one species, a beginning could not be made with the science of languages. . My statement: The above statement shows that the writer is critical of the Arabs and imagines that the expression 'Ajam, applied by them to those whose language is other than Arabic, is used out of bigotry and contempt for those people. He fell into this error because his Christian bigotry stood in the way of his finding out whether the expressions 'Ajam and 'Arab were devised by man or by. God Almighty. He has himself acknowledged in his book that man has not the capacity to formulate the elementary words of a language on his own. Arabic has two words in juxtaposition to each other. One is 'Arab, which connotes those who are eloquent and possess mastery of expression; and the other is 'Ajam, which means non-eloquent and tongue-tied. If Mr. Max Müller thinks that these two words are not ancient and Islām has invented them out of bigotry, he should specify the original terms which were used in these connotations, for it is not possible that a